


these four walls

by godgavemelou



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: M/M, Mentions of Suicide, barely, it's sad and angsty and horrible to be honest, this is mainly me getting feelings out
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-06
Updated: 2015-10-06
Packaged: 2018-04-25 04:29:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,223
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4946761
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/godgavemelou/pseuds/godgavemelou
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He relives every moment of his life with Harry, every ‘I love you’, every ‘goodbye’, every kiss. Their last goodbye is like a constant echo in his head, a song that won’t shut off or leave him alone, and he wants to scream to cover up the sound.</p>
            </blockquote>





	these four walls

**Author's Note:**

> i'm sorry for this

It’s been four months. Four months since Louis has taken a deep breath, since he’s went more than a few hours without wanting to break down and sob, since he’s so much as cracked a smile. Four months have passed and Louis can still smell Bleu De Chanel on Harry’s pillow because he refuses to wash the sheets. It’s been 124 days since Harry was driving home from Tesco, a simple trip to grab Louis some milk, and a drunk driver slammed into the side of their black Range Rover.

Louis wakes up every day but wishes he didn’t. He forces himself to walk to their too-big shower and stand under the scalding hot water, barely having the energy to wash away the shampoo in his hair. He grabs the rails on the side, where Harry’s strawberry conditioner still sits, and grips tightly, his knuckles turning white. Water runs down his face and into his eyes but he can’t shut them, just stares at the tiles as the water gets colder and starts to sting as it hits his skin. He can’t feel anything except the water pounding against his back, growing colder by the second because he’s been standing under the spray for over thirty minutes, unable to move or look away from the wall. He remembers rushed morning showers when Harry’s alarm didn’t go off, heated debates while they passed the shampoo between them, singing Grease songs at their top of their lungs, and he feels sick. Some mornings he can’t deal with the thoughts, and he lunges over and loses his stomach, coughs and heaves until he can’t anymore. 

Breakfast only happens when he can finally swallow the lump in his throat long enough to make some cereal. He sees Harry’s orange juice in the refrigerator when he reaches to grab the milk. It’s over a month out of date, still perched right next to the eggs that Niall brought over a week ago, so Louis grabs it. His hands shake as he pours it down the drain, almost afraid to lose another memory. Its Harry’s favorite, the only kind he would ever buy, and he remembers making Harry laugh so hard one evening that it dribbled from his nose. When the container is empty he throws the carton away forcefully, slamming it into the bin loud enough to scare himself. He doesn’t even bother to reach for the Coco Pops that are lying on the kitchen counter; just sits the milk down and walks away, his breath catching in his throat as he turns the light off and makes his way into the living room.  
  
Louis wraps himself in a blanket and grabs his phone from the coffee table. It’s dead because he doesn’t want to talk to anyone and never bothers to hook it to the charger. He stands and digs behind the couch, finally finding the little white cord, and hooking it into his phone. A few minutes pass and the screen finally pops up, his background showing him a dimply, wide eyed Harry. He took the picture in their bed, after kissing Harry silly, wanting to capture the stars in his eyes. The sheets fell around Harry’s shoulders as he stared up at Louis, his bottom lip stuck between his teeth as he grinned. Louis swallows and dials the same number he’s entered over a million times. It goes straight to voicemail and Louis starts to cry as he hears Harry’s raspy voice telling him to leave a message. It’s the same thing he’s heard on nights when Harry’s been out of the country and he’s called too late, or when Harry’s mad and won’t pick up the phone, the same voicemail he’s heard for over five years now. Some days it makes him angry and he throws his phone, other days he doesn’t feel anything, but today it rips his heart in two. He drops his phone and collapses into the couch cushions, his hands going to cover his face as he hiccups and sobs. He knows he should turn the phone off, have it disconnected so he can’t call it every single day, but he can’t. Every month the bill he comes and he just pays it, doesn’t think about the fact that Harry isn’t here to answer it anymore.

Louis finds the energy to finally climb from the couch and make his way back into the bedroom. He crawls back in under the sheets, the left side of the bed just as cold as ever, and grips on to Harry’s pillow. It only takes a minute before it’s wet, tears sliding down Louis’ cheeks until he can’t breathe and it’s hard to see. He knows he should get up, find something to distract him, but he can’t. The slide of their silk sheets keeps pulling him in and he just grips the pillow tighter. He can’t forget how many nights he’s slept in this bed with Harry, clutching him to his chest as they fall asleep. Memories of their skin touching, hot and sticky while they make love makes him bite his lip until it bleeds. He lets green eyes and a bright smile lull him into a dreamless sleep, where a blaring car horn and the skidding of tires doesn’t jerk him awake.

\--  
_  
“Hazzaaaaaa,” Louis groans as he stares into the fridge, a frown forming on his face as his eyes meet an empty shelf._

_“Yes?” Harry emerges into the kitchen wearing a small grin._

_“We’re out of milk.”_

_Harry just simply raises his brow. Louis cocks his hip and puts his hands there._

_“I can’t make my tea without milk.”_

_Harry walks over and pulls Louis against him, their chests flush against each other. His smile grows as he looks down at Louis, and he lays his hands on his lower back._

_“Well, we can’t have that, now can we?”_

_“Don’t be snarky, Harold.” Louis pouts._

_Harry giggles and leans forward, pressing their lips together in a light kiss. Even though Louis is sick and he’ll probably have a sore throat the next day too, he deepens it and presses Louis against the counter. When Louis goes to bite his lip, he pulls away with a smile._

_“I’ll go get your milk.”_

_Harry grabs his wallet from their drawer in the kitchen and before he leaves, he places another kiss against Louis’ temple and breathes an ‘I love you’ against his skin. Louis doesn’t know it’s the last one he’ll ever hear, the last time he’ll ever hear the rasp in his voice or feel his lips against his skin._  
  
\--

When it’s past 3 o’clock and Louis still hasn’t answered his phone, Liam comes over. He doesn’t bother knocking on the door or even asking if it’s fine, just walks straight in and finds Louis still under the duvet. Louis ignores him, rolls over and pulls the blankets over his head so he doesn’t have to get up. He doesn’t want to move from the bed and face a world without Harry. He doesn’t know who to be without Harry; he feels like no one, like an empty shell that just takes up space. Liam begs, pulls the blanket down and asks him to move to the living room, but he fights until he’s crying. He pounds his fists against Liam’s chest, fighting back because he can’t do it, he can’t be someone without Harry and pretend everything is fine when his entire world is crumbling into pieces around him.

He wishes he could sink into the floor and let it eat him up, swallow him whole and he could just not exist. He wants to die, even if it means he can’t be with Harry, because it’s better than existing without him. He’d rather just not exist at all, and he scares himself when the thought of death comes so easily to him. He relives every moment of his life with Harry, every ‘I love you’, every ‘goodbye’, every kiss. Their last goodbye is like a constant echo in his head, a song that won’t shut off or leave him alone, and he wants to scream to cover up the sound. 

When Louis is tired of fighting and can’t throw his fists anymore, he collapses against Liam and can’t even cry. He just puts his head in his chest and heaves, breaths coming in ragged as he tries to calm himself down. Liam is talking to him but Louis isn’t listening, can’t hear him over his own thoughts. He just rocks Louis back and forth, a hand moving through his hair as Louis finally calms down. For a minute he imagines it’s Harry, his deep voice telling him everything is going to be fine, that he’s going to be okay, and for that minute he actually believes it.

The boys never stay over long anymore, either because Louis doesn’t talk or because he sleeps the entire time. They try to get him to eat, to clean the house, to get his hair cut because it’s so long it falls in his eyes, but he never does. The first time he leaves the house since the funeral is to see Harry’s grave, but he barely makes it to the cemetery before he feels like his chest is collapsing. He sees the headstone and everything is heavy, a deep pain radiates from his chest and he’s gasping, his eyes filling with tears as he reads ‘Harry Styles’ etched into the rock. He tries not to think about the fact that in just a few short months, it could have read ‘Harry Styles-Tomlinson’, or that the flowers in his vase have died because he’s too afraid to visit his grave.

When Liam leaves and Louis is alone again, he finally makes a bowl of cereal. He sits at the bar and memories flood is his brain. He remembers watching Harry make their dinner while he sat on the counter watching, pretending to give helpful instructions but mainly just making Harry laugh. He thinks about their fight big fight in the new house, when Harry was spending their winter on Taylor’s arm and it made Louis sick and hateful. He’d punched Harry in the chest, told him to just go and be with her, and he’d pretended he wasn’t crying when Harry actually left, not so much as a goodbye as he slammed the door behind him. Louis’ brain goes red and then blank, and he throws his bowl across the kitchen, a scream ripping from his throat because it isn’t fair. 

His infinity, his perfect little forever with Harry, had barely lasted five years. It feels like it was boot camp a week ago, like they fell in love just a day ago, that Harry wasn’t violently ripped from his world more than four months ago. He watches the porcelain of his bowl shatter as it meets the wall, milk probably staining the ugly wallpaper Harry had insisted on decorating with, and Louis can’t be bothered to clean it up. He stands at the bar and chokes on the thick air around him. 

Maybe he stands there for a few minutes, or maybe it’s an hour, Louis honestly doesn’t know. When he finally moves, he leaves the mess in the kitchen and goes straight to their front door, putting on the first pair of shoes he finds. He doesn’t even lock the door as he leaves, not really caring about what could happen if he doesn’t. He walks the few miles to the cemetery, the cold January winds cutting into his skin as he goes. It’s already getting dark when he walks through the gate and towards the back, where two plots are sitting far away from all the rest. New flowers are resting in the vase, and now he can barely remember Liam saying something about stopping by today to leave some. They’re Harry’s favorite and Louis actually smiles when he sees them. Harry had told him he loved lilies after barely knowing him a month, one night when they were cuddled together in Louis’ bunk after a long day of rehearsing. Louis had promised he’d buy him the largest bouquet he could when they won, and the day after the finale, he bought him some anyway despite them only coming in third.

Louis lands on the grass next to the headstone, his knees getting damp from the snow on the ground as he kneels. His hand traces the name in the rock, his fingers lingering too long on the quote he’d insisted on putting there. “The summer time, and butterflies, all belong to your creation.” It’s something Harry had said one morning while they were basking in the sun streaming from their window, their bodies tangled in the sheets. He’d pushed the hair from Louis’ forehead and pressed kisses all over his face, murmuring the words as he did.

The world stands still as Louis leans against the grave, his lips pressing to the picture Anne had picked out to place there. His cheek meets the stone and he closes his eyes, swearing he can feel Harry’s arms wrapping around his middle. A chilly wind blows but for the first time in four months, Louis feels warm as he rests against the granite, the ghost of Harry completely wrapped around him.


End file.
